Tag Archives: defense policy

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons

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The US has agreed to extend “negotiations” over Iran’s nuclear weapons program into June.

Iran is expected to continue receiving some $700 million in oil export revenues that has been stuck overseas because of US sanctions.

Yet Iran gave nothing in return for the extension. Regarding those $700 million, the US gets nothing; Iran gets that for free, and they are free to use the money to expand its centrifuge program, continue its plutonium reactor program, develop its missile delivery program, and so on.

Another Cyber Threat

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…and an empty solution.

[NSA Director and Commander, US Cyber Command Admiral Michael] Rogers said he believed China along with “one or two” other countries had the capability to successfully launch a cyber-attack that could shut down the electric grid in parts of the United States.

And

US adversaries are performing electronic “reconnaissance” on a regular basis so that they can be in a position to attack the industrial control systems that run everything from chemical facilities to water treatment plants.

We’ve known the PRC, Russia, and have been hacking into a broad variety of our computer systems for some years. Rogers is correct that “if the US remains on the defensive, it would be a ‘losing strategy.'”

However, his insistence that

agreeing to an international code, a sort of “laws of law” in the cyber realm, is urgent[]

is wrong. These three nations are not going to honor any restrictions on their war fighting behaviors. Nor will any other nation that develops such a capability and then uses it.

What’s urgent is that we improve our defensive capability so that we can block—and preempt—further cyber recce runs and any attack. What’s urgent is that we develop our offensive cyber and physical capabilities so that we can fight a total cyber war, in conjunction with a physical response, to the total destruction of our attacker(s)’ ability to attack us again, much less continue its present attack.

Anything less is just selling us down the river.

Intelligence Fusion

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Intel fusion is the process of putting together disparate—often widely disparate—bits of information, from a wide variety of sources, to achieve a larger, coherent picture of various goings-on (and to rule out as truly unrelated some of those bits).

We’ve had in our recent past (as far as is being discovered by the public) a number of not too disparate, but seemingly relatively trivial on an individual basis, hacks by the People’s Republic of China of lower level US government agencies. They’ve hacked, for instance, our weather systems and satellite network, corporate email networks, the Federal government’s OPM computers, the White House’s computer networks, state and Federal level DMV databases, and on and on.

Often, the hacks really are directly useful: they get intellectual property, proprietary financial information, defense secrets, and so on.

But these hacks, rather their entry points, also represent windows into the government house—the Chinese sneak into our house through a variety of windows, since the front (and maybe back) doors are more or less locked.

What does fusion say about these disparate hacks? Are they just random probes? Pokings around to see what’s what or to see what they can get away with? Or, what’s getting planted in the way of malware that, once through the window, moves along, penetrating more deeply, perhaps proliferating? Once past the outer firewalls (the software version of a house’s locked entryways), what thefts are being set up for future use, what Stux-like sabotage is being prepared for future mid-crisis execution?

Maybe nothing. Maybe….

I’d rather be foolishly paranoid, though, than innocent and vulnerable.

Should NATO Cooperate with Russia?

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Can it, even? NATO’s new head, Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, thinks so. After all, “Russia [is] NATO’s biggest neighbor and both [are] here to stay.”

Sure. Enemies must cooperate, because they’re both big. Makes sense. Yeah.

“We simply can’t ignore each other. One way or another, we will have a relationship. The question is what kind of relationship,” he said.

NATO continues to aspire to a cooperative relationship with Russia but to get there Russia would need to want it and to take clear steps to make it possible.

Well, he’s half right: we can’t ignore each other. But Russia’s view of “cooperation” has been clear. It invaded and partitioned Georgia, with one effect being the prevention of that nation from joining NATO as it had wanted to do. It invaded and is busily partitioning Ukraine for the explicitly stated purpose of keeping it from aligning with western Europe, much less joining NATO, a move Ukraine had indicated it was interested in exploring. It has threatened Poland with nuclear attack if it accepted basing American missile shield facilities on its soil. It has moved troops close to the Baltic States and pursued cyberwar against them.

Yeah, we need to cooperate with this enemy. Or NATO needs a new politician to head it up who understands the situation.

Is the Distinction Important?

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The Wall Street Journal ran an article by Danny Yadron and Siobhan Gorman earlier in the week that talked about the penetration by Russian hackers of Federal government computers and those of companies doing business with the government. It’s an important article, and I recommend you read it all, but I want to focus on a couple of statements made in it that go to the heart of why we’re having so much trouble dealing with our enemies.

The statements are these:

A US official said differentiating between Russian criminal hackers and government hackers is difficult because the government uses cybersurveillance tools created by criminal groups and criminals use tools developed by the government.

And

“It [the recent hacking of JP Morgan Chase & Co] looks to be criminal and of Russian origin,” the US official said. But when it comes to gauging whether that criminal element is working with the government, “you’re back into that gray area. You really can’t tell.”

Russia is a totalitarian state, for all that it has “elections.” All the modern, cool totalitarian states do this anymore. As such a regime, the “criminal” hackers are limited in doing what they do without the Russian government’s active condoning of that behavior. This is further substantiated by the ubiquitousness of the free exchange of tools between these hackers and their government.

Whether any particular hack job is done by hackers or by formal agents of the Russian government, both are working for the benefit of Russia and for (not only to) the detriment of us.

Misunderstandings like these, of the fundamental character of certain of our enemies, are at the heart of why we’re having so much trouble defending ourselves from them and ultimately of defeating them.